Went to the marriage T tonight. I am ambivalent about the experience, but after a sleep, I expect to be all cool with it. The MT went through all the systems and processes for how he runs his deal, and it all made real sense. It is based on the IMAGO approach from some guy who wrote some book about getting the love you need. It broke down into the same lizard brain versus the frontal cortex discussion that I've focused my depression T on and my mindfulness approach to doing 3 little things every day. So I was all cool. Then he said that we weren't going to get into the betrayal at this first session as it is too charged with emotion. I thought, cool that makes sense, and lines up with my trying to approach things with the antithesis of my usual approach to charge headlong and aggressively into everything I "go after".
So, near the end, we started doing one of the exercises, and what do we end up talking about? My infidelity. I felt crushingly shamed sitting here talking to some guy I just met about the singularly most shameful acts of my existence, in front of someone who is still very hurt and angry about my actions. It kicked my ass a bit, to be totally honest and I am feeling incredibly emotionally fucked up. I am living with a weight of shame and remorse, and I don't feel terribly much like adding to that burden while I am also trying desperately to lift my head out of a major depression. I am not trying to make a cope out or excuses, because I am responsible for what I've done, I am just trying to find a pace of healing that lets me survive this. Yes, these are my actions, based on compulsions I can't understand or quantify, to self-mutilate in search of something, something I know not totally what I was looking for. I do know that I damn near destroyed myself in the process, and hurt my SO so greatly that I am still at risk of losing her.
I know I need to make amends, but I can't do it if it will destroy me in the process. It is clear to me that I need to take time and place with this, even at the risk of hurting her a little bit more, because I want to survive this to make it through. It sounds dramatic, and overwrought, but anyone who's been to the darkness knows that you don't compound your exit from it with more horror. I need a beachhead of safety and relative personal sanity, and I am getting there. This is not a rip the bandaid off moment, that's my usual self-mutilating stupidity.
Showing posts with label infidelity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label infidelity. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Cooking Sous Vide
Feeling the pressure. On all fronts. In some ways, I feel like I've entered the kill zone and am being subtly threatened from the front and my flanks. Not in some paranoid way of others seeking to harm, just the realization that I've got some stuff coming at me that is taking a great gulp of my psychic energies.
Work is stressful, as I am dealing with an influx of corporate masters all eager to look at the new toy. I am, as I've said, that new toy. They're eager as beans to talk with the big brain who has a knack for making all the other big brains do big brain things like come up with revolutionary ideas to retool the whole place on the same scale as the original business retooled the industry we live in. We'll see, but tomorrow is a presentation to all the biggest poobaahs and poobettes about the "thing". Nervous, but confident all at the same time.
Got an email from an old friend outlining a betrayal that rocked their world and that they never have overcome. It killed me in light of my betrayal and the impact of that on my SO. I am feeling, maybe a good thing, the impact of her hurt and I am in a bit of self-loathing around it. I feel like I am at risk, if not now, but later, of losing her and it scares me. I told her that today, and it scared me to even tell her.
A couple of days ago, I asked the SO about marriage counselling and if she'd call a friend we have who's in the business and see if she'd make a recommendation. The response was a recommendation and a request that I call said friend. I called her this afternoon, from a conference room at work, and she asked me to outline what has been going on with me. I told her and she asked me a bunch more questions. Then she started pushing me a bit to see if I understood that I was dealing with deep-seeded stuff, not just the present. I told her that I was entirely aware of the psychodynamic nature of my issues and that I was in deep. We talked some more, and she was really supportive, cautioning to take things slow. Then she dropped a bomb on me.
I will leave this post with the question she asked that rocked me back into my seat and slammed my heart into my spine. She asked me. "Who in your life is a positive male role model that you want to be like, that you aspire to be like and who you'd take positive feedback from?"
Work is stressful, as I am dealing with an influx of corporate masters all eager to look at the new toy. I am, as I've said, that new toy. They're eager as beans to talk with the big brain who has a knack for making all the other big brains do big brain things like come up with revolutionary ideas to retool the whole place on the same scale as the original business retooled the industry we live in. We'll see, but tomorrow is a presentation to all the biggest poobaahs and poobettes about the "thing". Nervous, but confident all at the same time.
Got an email from an old friend outlining a betrayal that rocked their world and that they never have overcome. It killed me in light of my betrayal and the impact of that on my SO. I am feeling, maybe a good thing, the impact of her hurt and I am in a bit of self-loathing around it. I feel like I am at risk, if not now, but later, of losing her and it scares me. I told her that today, and it scared me to even tell her.
A couple of days ago, I asked the SO about marriage counselling and if she'd call a friend we have who's in the business and see if she'd make a recommendation. The response was a recommendation and a request that I call said friend. I called her this afternoon, from a conference room at work, and she asked me to outline what has been going on with me. I told her and she asked me a bunch more questions. Then she started pushing me a bit to see if I understood that I was dealing with deep-seeded stuff, not just the present. I told her that I was entirely aware of the psychodynamic nature of my issues and that I was in deep. We talked some more, and she was really supportive, cautioning to take things slow. Then she dropped a bomb on me.
I will leave this post with the question she asked that rocked me back into my seat and slammed my heart into my spine. She asked me. "Who in your life is a positive male role model that you want to be like, that you aspire to be like and who you'd take positive feedback from?"
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
I Wanteth but Can Not Yet Haveth
I mean it. I am not kidding, nor am I playing. I am serious, and I wish I could make that unequivocally clear. My wonderful and talented wife is struggling with my betrayal, and I wish I had a magic wand to fix it. I believe she wants to make it work, I do, but I also know she is hurt by my actions. I can't say more than I am sorry and that I will do anything I need to, in order to make it right. That is not out of some preservatory instinct of saving my home and hearth, but a simple truth of my realization that it is what I want.
I never meant for it to get like this, to be so low in my flow as to seek shelter in puddles of acid. I never meant for that. But my head hasn't been right for a long time, 7.5 years, like I said yesterday. My depression, a wicked, wicked beast, put me in a place where I made all the wrong choices. But therein lies the rub, it was a choice, or repeated choices, and for that I am, and I am alone responsible. I need to own my choices and be accountable. I didn't cheat because she is a bad person, I did so to play out a drama to soothe my inner torment. I didn't have to do that, but I did. It cannot be differently said. I could have done a thousand things, but I chose to do something that would hurt someone I hold very dear the most.
You might ask if it is because she is some wallflower that she is seeking to make this work. It is in no way true, and in fact is diametrically the opposite from my perspective. She's gotten so much better in the last few years, and is so much more aware, and has grown as I have shrunk. She can care about me, even in this state, and even in this place, becuase she is strong. But she feels de-valued, and I can't fix that with a bon mot or two. I wish, and want nothing more than to ease her burden. This isn't about her, it is about me and my failings, my going untreated for a brain ravaging disease, choosing the safety of a replay of my causal pschyo-dramas over being a grown man and asking for, and getting help. I am not self-flagellating, I am speaking my truth in the hope that I can be better for accepting it.
I want what I can not have, some sanity and safe harbor for her. At least not yet. But I want it more than anything I have ever wanted.
I never meant for it to get like this, to be so low in my flow as to seek shelter in puddles of acid. I never meant for that. But my head hasn't been right for a long time, 7.5 years, like I said yesterday. My depression, a wicked, wicked beast, put me in a place where I made all the wrong choices. But therein lies the rub, it was a choice, or repeated choices, and for that I am, and I am alone responsible. I need to own my choices and be accountable. I didn't cheat because she is a bad person, I did so to play out a drama to soothe my inner torment. I didn't have to do that, but I did. It cannot be differently said. I could have done a thousand things, but I chose to do something that would hurt someone I hold very dear the most.
You might ask if it is because she is some wallflower that she is seeking to make this work. It is in no way true, and in fact is diametrically the opposite from my perspective. She's gotten so much better in the last few years, and is so much more aware, and has grown as I have shrunk. She can care about me, even in this state, and even in this place, becuase she is strong. But she feels de-valued, and I can't fix that with a bon mot or two. I wish, and want nothing more than to ease her burden. This isn't about her, it is about me and my failings, my going untreated for a brain ravaging disease, choosing the safety of a replay of my causal pschyo-dramas over being a grown man and asking for, and getting help. I am not self-flagellating, I am speaking my truth in the hope that I can be better for accepting it.
I want what I can not have, some sanity and safe harbor for her. At least not yet. But I want it more than anything I have ever wanted.
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